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Landry v. Attorney General4/13/1999
Middlesex.
March 1, 1999.
Deoxyribonucleic Acid. Evidence, Blood sample. Regulation. Injunction. Administrative Law, Regulations. Constitutional Law, Search and seizure, Privacy. Privacy. Search and Seizure, Blood sample, Expectation of privacy. Identification.
Civil action commenced in the Superior Court Department on February 2, 1998.
The case was heard by Isaac Borenstein, J.
The Supreme Judicial Court granted an application for direct appellate review and, on its own initiative, transferred a second appeal from the Appeals Court.
In these consolidated appeals, we are concerned with challenges made by the plaintiffs to the validity of the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) database statute, St. 1997, c. 106, codified for the most part at G. L. c. 22E, Sects. 1-15 (Act). A Judge in the Superior Court concluded that the involuntary taking of blood samples from the plaintiffs, in accordance with the directives of the Act, violates both the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and art. 14 of the Declaration of Rights of the Massachusetts Constitution. Based on this Conclusion, the Judge granted the plaintiffs a preliminary injunction which enjoined the defendants from enforcing any aspect of the Act. We consider the grounds relied on by the Judge, and an additional challenge made by the plaintiffs (which was not ruled on by the Judge) that the provision in Sect. 4 (a) of the Act for the use of reasonable force to obtain a DNA sample when a convicted person refuses to submit to its collection must be delineated by regulation. We conclude that the preliminary injunction cannot be justified on the grounds relied on by the Judge, and that it also cannot be supported on the basis that the reasonable force provision is unlawful in the absence of regulations on the matter. Accordingly, we vacate the preliminary injunction.
1. The following background is necessary to an understanding of the issues.
(a) The Act. All fifty States have enacted statutes creating a DNA database. By St. 1997, c. 106, the Act was adopted in Massachusetts, and codified as G. L. c. 22E, Sects. 1-15. In creating the Act, the Legislature stated its purpose as follows: "It shall be the policy of the commonwealth to assist local, state and federal criminal Justice and law enforcement agencies in: (1) deterring and discovering crimes and recidivistic criminal activity; (2) identifying individuals for, and excluding individuals from, criminal investigation or prosecution; and (3) searching for missing persons. Said policy shall be served by establishing facilities for comparing biological evidence recovered during criminal investigations with biological material obtained from offenders convicted of crimes in the commonwealth." St. 1997, c. 106, Sect. 1. The Legislature went on to express its "find that the collection and analysis of DNA samples is an integral part of the investigation and prosecution of criminal offenses and that such technology is an important tool in the defense of individuals charged with criminal offenses in the commonwealth." St. 1997, c. 106, Sect. 2.
The Act provides as follows. Any person convicted of the perpetration of any of thirty-three enumerated crimes (or an attempt or conspiracy to commit any of them) must submit a DNA sample to the State crime laboratory. G. L. c. 22E, Sect. 3. The Act further requires submission of a DNA sample from any person currently incarcerated, on probation, or on parole as the result of a conviction or judicial determination resulting from a charge of any of the listed offenses, notwithstanding the date of such conviction or judicial determination. G. L. c. 22E, Sect.
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